April, 2017 archive
Tantrum in the Political Playpen 0
On a somewhat related topic, Stephen B. Young of the Caux Round Table has some interesting observations about Donald Trump’s dismal failure to understand how stuff works.
And God Said, “Suffer, Baby” 0
If you are going to be a Biblical literalist, you can’t pick and choose. Literalism is an all or nothing proposition. Farron Cousins explains.
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
Robert Redford has seen it all before.
Follow the link for the rest.
Vicarious Learning 0
American ex-pats in France warn French not to make the same mistake once.
And Now for Something Complete Different 0
Peter Schickele, professor of musical pathology at the University of Southern North Dakota in Hoople, writes bad music good.
Tales of the Tarheel Potty Police 0
Alfred Doblin skewers the ballyhooed “compromise” over North Carolina’s infamous peer-into-the-potty law. A snippet:
Think about it. A law approved by a Republican legislature and signed by a Democratic governor that prevents municipalities from ensuring that no resident of their respective communities is the subject of discrimination. And this was the fix to a bad law.
The Republican Party, embracing mean for the sake of mean ever since Richard Nixon’s odious Southern Strategy.
Stirring the Nepot, Reprise 0
Ed at Gin and Tacos considers the proliferation of presidential progeny in the process. A snippet (emphasis added):
In related news, Brian Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, muses on the responsibility of the press in during the Great Trumpling.
Steering towards the Rocks 0
In The Seattle Times, Philip Cushman suggests that most analyses of Republicans’ inability to get anything of substance done in spite of a holding a Congressional majority and the Presidency are missing the primary reason. Among the suggested reasons he’s read are that they have lost the ability to govern, are ideologically fragmented, and hampered by Donald Trump’s political inexperience.
He suggests that there is a much more important reason: Republican strategy has shot the party in both feet (emphasis added):
• One, it has exaggerated and twisted basic conservative concepts until they are out of touch with current political challenges. For instance, 19th-century ideas about the wisdom of the unregulated marketplace cannot begin to address the enormous and complex labor, health-care, tax-code, environmental and infrastructure needs of the 21st.
• Two, they have had to mortgage their integrity to the very richest of Americans, who demand tax cuts and devious welfare-for-the-rich and deregulation deals that make any sort of rational and creative legislative response to difficult 21st century challenges impossible to craft.
• Three, they have had to quietly and under cover of code words and stereotypes make common cause with the worst of American culture: racism and xenophobia.
I disagree with his use of the phrase, “has been forced” in the first sentence in the excerpt.
The Republican Party chose this course; the tactics were not forced on it.
The party walked willingly and purposefully into the pit in pursuit of power.
Follow the link for the rest of his article.
Opening Day in the Republican League 0
Afterthought:
I believe that it is safe to assume that the pitcher is a Rightie.
Stirring the Nepot 0
The Des Moines Register’s Rekha Basu wonders why Donald Trump is surrounding himself with his progeny. A snippet: